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Its also highly unlikely that junk DNA would have remained in the genome if it had no purpose

This is a common error; the reverse is actually true. Cells (and by extension, us) serve DNA. Cells (again, by extension, us) are merely vehicles for DNA to replicate - they're the unit of evolution. As a consequence, the DNA does not care whether it contains 'junk' bits. It only cares if it's faithfully copied. Btw, this is an astonishing consequence of evolution that personally blows my mind. If anybody's interested, read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

Note: I'm aware that DNA is a mindless macro-molecule. It just easier to anthropomorphism it for the purpose of discussion.

You must be an Albertan! I don't mean any disrespect, but Albertans need to stop beating that dead horse called the NEP. It was 35 bloody years ago! Were you even born? It may even be relevant for your comment, but it still drives me nuts. Every time I'm in Calgary, it takes no less than 5 minutes for someone to mention the NEP. Doesn't matter the topic, eventually the NEP is mention. WTF!

AndrewDBarker writes "Modern Warfare 2 will use a matchmaking setup powered by IWNet for online play (as we've discussed). It's too early to say what Rage will use, but Carmack indicated he believed the servers are something of a remnant of the early days of PC gaming. That said, he realizes the affinity many PC gamers have for them — and is glad Rage won't be leading the charge away from them. 'The great thing is we won't have to be a pioneer on that,' he says. 'We'll see how it works out for everyone else.'"

davecl writes "First-light images and spectra have now been released for all three of the instruments on Herschel. (The first images came out a couple of weeks back.) The news is covered on the BBC, on the ESA website, on the Herschel mission blog, and elsewhere. The data all looks fantastic, and is especially impressive since the satellite was only launched about 7 weeks ago. I work on the SPIRE instrument and help maintain the blog; but even I am astounded by the amount of information in the SPIRE images."